100% yes to your post OP. I find it kinda silly that they restrict things like that behind gender..I mean would a iconic pose really be less iconic just because its done by the other gender? For things like race starting gear I can understand the restriction since every culture kinda looks different and it kinda creates a certain style for each race but why should a woman/man not be able to hold the sword like the other gender does?
I would even go so far and say that there should not be gender restricted emotes..if my female Au Ra grew up in a men only group isn't there a big chance that she will mimic them? Why are the Xaela that are warring tribes stand around shyly and unsure as a female? IMO the best would be if we could choose our own emotes for the character when we create it (if you dont care you could always just click the default option) so that I can pray like a Au Ra female, be happy like a Lala, greet like a Roe and so on..(After the character creation you cant change it back so one should really think about it.) I mean our character might be from a certain race but as adventurers we should come in contact with a lot of other races and thus it kinda makes sense that we will see lots of different kind of emotes..its not that far off that someone might like it better than their own and change their behavior..(I mean at the time I was in Japan I did the little thank you bow even though I never use it in my country) This would create so many different individual characters and some might even use a race that they before did not want to play because they disliked the emotes/walk animations and more.
And to make everyone happy they could introduce some new changeposes too. ;)
